RIO DE JANEIRO (Brazil) – An unusual scene attracted the attention of pedestrians at the Copacabana Beach, South Zone of Rio de Janeiro City, on the morning of last Wednesday. A team of police officers, accompanied by an agent of Police Special Operations Battalion (BOPE) and another federal agent, flew over the site in two armored helicopters of the Air Service of the Civil Police (Saer) while returning from a training course on the Rio +20 Conference and saw a commotion on the sidewalk. Realizing that this was a robbery, they landed a helicopter in the sand and were able to stop the bandits.

Police said four robbers armed with knives robbed a group of nine Chinese tourists. Also according to the police, as the beach was empty, two shots were fired from a pistol. Two robbers were arrested, and a camera recovered from tourists. One of the prisoners is Thiago Nunes Bruno and the other is less than 15 years. Another two bandits escaped.

The agents arrested the suspects at the time of the Hotel Porto Bay. In a statement, the Civil Police said the helicopter came down on the beach, and that the agents made the approach and led the criminals to the Police Tourist Service (DEAT), where the the act has been registered.

“We were returning from training for the Rio +20 heliport in Lagoa when we realize that a group of tourists was surrounded by young people. We note that it was a robbery and, as the beach was empty, I landed in the sand. The team that was left on board to arrest the assailants” Adonis Lopes de Oliveira, a helicopter pilot said.

The flight data recorder from an Air France plane that crashed in 2009 off the coast of Brazil has been recovered, officials say.
France’s Bureau of Investigation (BEA) said the memory unit of the device was “in good physical condition”.

French deep-sea robots have resumed searching for the airliner’s cockpit voice recorder.
The Air France Airbus A330 plane went down in the Atlantic on 1 June 2009, killing all 228 people on board.

Vital data still missing

Last week the French search team found the outer casing of the flight data
recorder, but not its memory unit. The crucial unit was located on Sunday and
delivered to a search vessel.

The wreckage was discovered last month after a long search of 10,000 sq km
(3,860 sq miles) of sea floor.

It was found only on a fourth attempt, using robots capable of operating
4,000m (13,120ft) below the ocean’s surface.

The Paris-bound Air France jet went down after running into an intense
high-altitude thunderstorm, four hours following take-off from Rio de Janeiro.

At least 23 people have been killed and 153 arrested in four days of clashes as Brazilian security forces crack down on drug gangs in Rio de Janeiro’s violent slums.

Heavily-armed men continued to stop cars and buses, rob passengers and set vehicles on fire, police said.

Military police said 15 suspected gang members died in shootouts with officers on Thursday.

Since the weekend, at least 23 people have died in clashes and two policemen have been wounded.

Gang-related violence has plagued Rio for decades, but is mostly centered on the city’s slums, known as favelas. But now it’s spilling onto the wealthier parts of town as drug traffickers are fighting back against police operations aimed at pacifying the slums.

“This is a desperate attempt to weaken our security efforts,” said Sergio Cabral, governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro.

“What they want is to create panic, for society to retreat, but we will not retreat.”

The escalating violence casts more doubt on the ability of Rio authorities to get a grip on security ahead of its hosting of two of the planet’s largest sporting events, the 2014 World Cup and the Olympics two years later.

“There are groups of criminals who have been installed here for 20, 30 years, and they might not want to give up,” said Rio state public safety director Jose Beltrame.

“But we’re not giving up either. If they keep this up, we will redouble our efforts. Anyone who gets in our path will be run over.”

The police have been heavily reinforced by the Brazilian government as more than 1,000 officers were removed from desk jobs to join the operations and 300 extra motorcycle police were on patrol making up a total of 17,500 officers to fight drug gangs.

Gunmen took tourists as hostage in Rio de Janeiro Hotel while trying to escape from chasing policemen.

The incident took place when 60 drug gangs member were intercepted by the police while they were returning from a party early Sunday morning. Police started to chase these gangster. To save themselves 10 gangster went inside the InterContinental hotel and took 35 tourists as hostage.

What followed was 3 hour long gunfire battle between the police and the gangsters which ended with 1 female gang member dead and 4 police officers injured. All the hostages were released unharmed.

It was the second tourists hostage situation earlier, an ex-policemen in Manila, Philippines took 25 tourists hostage and demanded to be reinstated in the police force. Negotiations and later police attack killed the hijacker but not before he killed 10 tourists. All tourists were from Hong Kong.

This Hotel hijacking incident has raised questions over the security in Rio de Janeiro considering that since is going to host next Soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Crime in the city in increasing by the day which creates security issues for the foreign tourists.